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Saturday, November 29, 2014

Bic Generation

Made in Japan used
to mean the product was junk, until W. Edwards Deming brought his message of
quality to Japanese manufacturers. We need another Deming--this time for
China.

Made in China has
become code for cheap--in the most
negative connotation of the word:

Appliances with a useful life of
three to five years

Napkins and tissues that shred in
my hand

Plastic bottles too thin to grip

We live in a disposable culture, where dumping something
when it breaks is cheaper than fixing it.

I call it the Bic Generation, derived from the pens and
lighters that started us on the road away from a fix culture to a dump culture.

Zack Whittaker writing in ZDNet, called it the iGeneration, with the "i" representing both
the types of mobile technologies being heralded by children and adolescents
(iPhone, iPod, Wii, iTunes) plus the fact that these technologies are mostly "individualized" in the way they are used.

“The iGeneration don't care about products lasting,”
Whittaker noted. “They just want something here and now, that will do the job
and something they can dispose of without it hurting their wallets when that
moment comes.”

The worry, though, is not just that every thing is disposable in today’s Bic Generation. This mentality sometimes extends
to every one.

The University of Minnesota, for example, found that the
divorce rate hasn't declined since 1980, as was thought. When the university’s
researchers controlled for changes in the age composition of the married
population, they discovered that the divorce rate actually rose by 40 percent.

In reporting the story, The
Washington Post wrote: “The flipside of this finding is the relative rarity
of divorce among younger Americans today. In the 1970s, a couple might get
married at 25 and be divorced by 30. But today, that same couple would be more
likely to simply live together for a few years and then head their separate
ways when things go south.”

“When things go south.” It can apply to our children, too.

Last week the National Center on Family Homelessness found
that the number of homeless children in the U.S. has surged to an all-time high--nearly 2.5 million children homeless at some point in 2013. That’s one child
in every 30.

The blame? The center pointed to our high poverty rate, the
lack of affordable housing and the impacts of pervasive domestic violence.

But I wonder how many of these young people were thrown out
of the house because they were considered “broken”--gay, lesbian, bisexual,
transgender or pregnant?

An independent film shot last year, titled The Disposable Generation, sought to
capture the writer/director’s view that today “numbness is a virtue … an apathetic
youth favors the modern American dream, which doesn’t necessarily involve being
awake any more.”

There might be hope. A recent Twitter exchange that I saw
went like this:

We’re
the “everything is disposable” generation. We dont like it we replace it. If
its broke we throw it out. If its too hard we quit on it

Not
quite. Dnt like it? We make it better. Broke? Make it so it doesnt break again.
Too hard? Make it easier